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The Simulation Hypothesis (2015)
Interesting premise, but falls well short.
This documentary purports to answer the question of whether the physical universe exists, or is it a virtual reality being run through an information processing system. This is an interesting idea which this film, unfortunately, fails to properly address. The major problem the film has is over-reach. It promises not just to explore this idea but to definitively answer it using "the latest scientific ideas about the fundamental nature of reality." Unsurprisingly, it fails to do either very well.
Taking its starting point as the philosophical dispute between materialism and idealism in classical Greece it then jumps forward to the theoretical controversies raised in the 20th century by the discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics. If you are not at all familiar with the history of quantum mechanics then this part of the documentary may serve as a useful primer to you. If you know most or all of this already then it only serves to slow the film down from delivering the "evidence" of simulation theory that it promises at the outset and which this particular viewer was keen to appraise. In addition, this section ends with an explanation of the development of the variations of the famous double-slit experiment which appears to intentionally misrepresent what is meant by an "observer" in these experiments. This film makes it appear as though the "observer" has to be a conscious human who is causing the wave-particle duality collapse by opening their eyes. The accompanying claim that this is evidence of humans "hacking the universe" is laughable nonsense.
While some valid scientific principles are peppered throughout, in an apparent attempt to give the threadbare argument intellectual heft, these are cherry-picked and often poorly reasoned. The essential argument is further undermined by the continued and intrusive use of extended sequences of Sim City characters and clips from popular films, such as The Wizard of Oz and The Matrix. The final blow to this documentary's pretensions comes at its conclusion where the film makers' intent is finally revealed to be a cheap attempt to give "intelligent design" a scientific makeover.
To sum up, the chance to explore the legitimate arguments for the simulation hypothesis ended up being hamstrung by its hubris, its frequent distracting diversions into pop culture, its poorly understood and reasoned central premise, and it's quasi-religious conclusion.
Shellshock Rock (1979)
Get an Alternative Ulster!
Shellshock Rock is the first part of documentary filmmaker John T. Davis 'punk trilogy' - it was followed by Protex Hurrah and Self-Conscious Over You (both 1980). Davis's grimy, low-budget (just like the music) films captures the zeitgeist of the Ulster punk scene and stand as a lasting testament to the spirit of UK punk as it existed out in the grey and dreary provinces. Unlike the cocky, art-punk crowd of the first wave of punk in London, the punk scene in the north of Ireland exhibits an unsophisticated innocence which is charming in its simple idealism. With the deadly shadow of the Troubles and sectarianism continually looming in the background, the punk rock musicians and fans interviewed here struggle to articulate just what punk means to them, but as they mug for the cameras and strike self-conscious poses it becomes apparent that it offers a voice, a release of energy and a chance to rebel against an oppressive and violent status quo.
The film features wonderful live footage of the well known names of the scene, such as The Undertones (a brilliant live rendition of Teenage Kicks at Chesters in Portrush is a highlight) and Stiff Little Fingers (captured during a blistering performance of Alternative Ulster live at the New University of Ulster). Less well-known bands such as Rudi, The Outcasts, The Idiots, Protex, Parasites, Victim and Rhesus Negative also feature and absolutely embody the earnest but liberating D-I-Y amateurism of the time.
The film also captures footage from legendary punk venue The Harp Bar (Belfast's equivalent of London's Roxy Club or New York's CBGB's) and an enthusiastic Terri Hooley waxing lyrical about the scene in his massively important Good Vibrations record shop. Honestly, if you want to get a raw and essential view of the punk scene in the north of Ireland exactly as it was, this film is indispensable. Pair it up with 2012's Good Vibrations for an unbeatable Ulster punk double-bill that will leave you nostalgic for lost idealism if you're a certain age, or for an authentic look at the history of a movement that burned all too briefly if you're a bit younger.
Dong tian li (2016)
In the bleak midwinter
Set in north-east China during midwinter, this low-budget film, featuring non-professional actors is, despite its almost glacial pace, very moving and effective. The film tells the story of Old Liu, a septuagenarian whose closest, and perhaps only, friend is his similarly slow-moving and placid ox. Cheated out of his home by his selfish and greedy son and his vicious daughter-in-law, Old Liu finds himself relying on the support of his other children in order to survive the winter. Unfortunately, he finds very little help there and soon finds himself eking out a miserable existence in a run-down shack.
Despite the sombre tone of the story, first-time writer-director Peng Shigang manages to include some wry social observation and dark humour to leaven proceedings. The graceful and clean cinematography also manages to find many moments of fleeting beauty in the ostensibly dismal and wintry landscape.
The tale is told in a simple and elemental style that nicely matches the character of Old Liu himself. It has a lot to say about selfishness, greed and filial responsibility. The stoic and uncomplaining central character facing escalating travails with hardly a complaint reminded me quite a bit of the tone of Yimou Zhang's 'To Live' and both films share many themes. While this film doesn't quite reach the heights of Zhang's masterpiece, and not many films do, it's well worth watching.
Kovasikajuttu (2012)
"I think everyone has the right to make a decision about where and how they would like to live."
This documentary film follows a Finnish punk rock band whose members have a love-hate relationship with the world and with each other. We see them bickering at rehearsals, tired and strung-out on the tour bus and pumped up after a triumphant gig. Pretty standard fare you might imagine. What gives The Punk Syndrome its unique edge, however, is that each of the four band-mates has a developmental disability which finds them in a supported living arrangement in a group home. Using a cinéma vérité style, devoid of commentary or context-setting captions, the lives of the four band members are slowly revealed to us in a thoughtful, sensitive and non-judgemental way. We find that, like anyone drawn to punk anywhere, the band, particularly main songwriter Pertti, use punk rock music as an outlet for their frustrations and anger at a world that sidelines and ignores them. Pertti fills his journal with his observations on life and these are transformed seamlessly into powerful, honest lyrics which fit neatly into punk rock's classic recurring themes; discrimination for being different, the dull condescension of the "normal" world, the lack of dignity, equality and respect for those who don't or can't quietly conform.
The actual music of the band is classic rudimentary punk - think early Ramones - but effectively arranged and performed. We also get a glimpse into the lives of each of the band members outside of music and it is these parts of the film which are the most emotionally hard-hitting. The scenes with the sweet-natured drummer, Toni, are particularly effective - we watch as his aging parents gently try to confront him with the fact that one day they will die and not be there to support him, and we see his unrequited love for a woman who loves another. The scene where Pertti explains to the band's friend/manager that he didn't attend his own mother's funeral as no-one thought it was important to invite him is also deeply tinged with sadness, hurt and anger.
Despite these moments, this film never descends into weepy-eyed hand-wringing over the lives of its subjects. The directors keep the tone generally upbeat and energetic and there is lots of humour in the band member's brutally honest but likable personalities. To sum up - The Punk Syndrome manages to be funny and poignant and respectful to its subjects whilst making a powerful case for the liberating power of punk rock music.
Ladies & Gentlemen (2012)
Effective guerrilla-style documentary
Amos Poe is most well known for his association with the No Wave film movement of the early 80s, and this minimalist, low-budget, documentary film shares much of that movement's guerrilla film-making aesthetics. In more recent times, Poe has also become part of the Remodernist film movement and this documentary, with its agitated handheld camera pans and frenetic editing, certainly meets the remodernist criteria of a "stripped down, minimal, lyrical, punk kind of filmmaking".
Most, if not all of the footage, appears to have been captured on the L train line. This line is part of the New York City Subway system and it moves hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers daily between Eighth Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan, and Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Poe's roving, stealthy, voyeuristic camera captures the continual movement and noise of New York City's Subway system. Devoid of any commentary, he flashes the passengers, the wall-to-wall adverts, the buskers and the graffiti in our faces in disconcerting fashion. As we begin to appreciate the complex and disorienting scale and diversity of the people, sights and sounds of the Subway system we reach an understanding of its hidden meaning and beauty.
This film effectively utilises the Japanese concepts of wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection) and mono no aware (the awareness of the transience of things and the bittersweet feelings that accompany their passing) and how they have the ability to show us the truth of existence.
Nina Hagen = Punk + Glory (1999)
One for fans of Hagen and/or students of punk and post-punk music history.
With her flamboyant sense of style and attention-seeking, uninhibited behaviour Nina Hagen is a one-of-a-kind talent who's pretty hard to characterise and tends to divide audiences pretty sharply. Personally, I'm a fan of the courageous, outrageous women (Hagen, Ari Up, Lydia Lunch, Poly Styrene etc) who found liberation via the punk movement and went on to defy society's definitions and expectations of what women are and how they should behave. Beyond the shock tactics and the aggression, most of these women also had a deeper spiritual dimension, which they explored in their art.
Sempel attempts to show both sides of Hagen in this film; not only Hagen's public persona of the wild and loud provocateur, but also the devotional, poetic earth-mother. However, his film's ragged and unfocussed style doesn't really hit his mark and nor does it do his subject any favours. Sempel's film actually manages to be quite dull in parts despite the fact that Hagen is never less than fascinating to watch. She has a variety of facial tics, eccentric vocal mannerisms and unselfconscious exhibitionism that borders on hyperactivity. Unfortunately, Sempel does not make best use of this. Instead, a long line of famous faces is paraded on screen in appreciation of Hagen, but fail to add much of value.
Sempel, also seems rather taken by the appearance of Hagen's sixteen-year-old daughter, Cosma, and his camera lingers rather creepily on her in several scenes, in my opinion.
Overall, I enjoyed this despite its flaws but I suspect that this film is probably only for fans of Hagen and/or students of punk and post-punk music history.
Sain (1963)
Watch with an open mind
This was directed by the legendary Masao Adachi working along with students of Nihon University (Nihon University Film Study Club) as part of a non-hierarchical collective, with the director just one voice among many. This experimental film is deliberately over-lit and over-exposed making it difficult at times to discern what you're seeing. This gives the film an abstract quality that tips into a dreamlike surrealism at times. Taken in conjunction with the unnerving, dissonant sound design, this film reminded me quite a bit of the early films of David Lynch.
The Closed Vagina of the title supposedly represents the blocked the political stalemate of the Leftist student movement after their impressive mass radical protest movement of 1960 failed to prevent the renewal and ratification of the neo-imperialist Japan-US Joint Security Treaty (or Anpo Agreement). However, Adachi has subsequently insisted that the film was not designed to deliver such a one-dimensional political message and that its meaning should be more open to the interpretation of the viewer.
The plot loosely follows the travails of the female half of a male and female couple. The woman appears to have a disorder which causes her to have a sealed vagina. To be honest, beyond that the narrative is nearly impenetrable and it's probably just best to watch and be swept along by the visuals. Personally, I thought there might be some sort of proto-feminist statement buried within the film regarding the treatment of women, especially by the medical profession, in a world that views them as objects of either pleasure and/or reproduction. Anyway, you're take on this might be quite different, so just watch with an open mind and decide for yourself.
Guerillere Talks (1978)
An important early work
The 'No Wave' creative movement in music and cinema of the late 1970s in New York was characterised by an outright rejection of established aesthetic boundaries. No Wave deconstructs notions of how cinema should look, how and where it should be viewed, and even questions what entertainment should be.
Vivienne Dick arrived in New York as a young film-maker at the right moment to establish herself as a leading light in this scene. This, her first film, is comprised of a series of short portraits of several of the female personalities of the Downtown art scene. These include; photographer Beate Nilsen, Ikue Mori (the drummer for seminal no wave band DNA), Lydia Lunch (musician, poet and queen of the no wave scene), Pat Place (artist, photographer and musician in The Contortions and Bush Tetras), Adele Bertei (organ and guitar player in the original line up of the Contortions), and Anya Philips (manager of The Contortions and the co-founder of the legendary New York nightclub the Mudd Club)
Dick met most of these women at a feminist art salon in the late 70s called Les Guérillères after Monique Wittig's feminist novel of the same name about a group of warrior women who assault patriarchal language. The members of Les Guérillères would meet informally on Dick's rooftop and discuss art, politics, and sexuality and share their latest art works.
Dick, who had originally planned to make a film of Les Guérillères, was instead inspired to make Guerillere Talks as an opportunity to remove her performers from the "male gaze" and to foreground them, and women generally, on their own terms within the established masculine art form of cinema.
Dick's energetic, rough and ready, guerrilla-style approach to film-making demands a new way of engaging with the art and frames her, as the director, as collaborator with the women she films, rather than voyeur.
The film presents the self-defining speech and action of women and juxtaposes it against a backdrop of a decaying social order. In doing so, it provides an example of resistance to and rejection of cultural and commercial aesthetic normalcy. This is a theme she would return to in her subsequent work.
She Had Her Gun All Ready (1978)
Thoughtful and interesting experiment
This film explores the idea of power imbalances. While some see the characters portrayed by Lunch and Place as the passive and active partners in a relationship, I read it as the struggle between the dominant and repressed parts of one woman's psyche. The key to this is the scene where Place stares into the mirror, Lunch appears, and the mirror breaks.
It is possible to read Lunch's character as the personification of intrusive thoughts. In the opening scene, as Place seems gripped a by torpor/depression she's unable to shake, Lunch declaims repeatedly and aggressively: "Well, what ya gonna do?"
Eventually, the Place character flees from her dingy flat but she is unable to completely escape the Lunch character who we suddenly get glimpses of in the café and on the street, like a spectre haunting Place. The Lunch character also seems to appear in conjunction with scenes depicting broken glass. I'm reaching here, but I thought you could read that as the Place character considering self-harm.
Finally, the two characters end up at the fun park at Coney Island. Here, initially, we see the strongest example of the Lunch character's sexual swagger and physical confidence. Without revealing too much in the way of spoilers, the power relationship is altered at the denouement when Place finally reveals her handgun and dons her new costume of black gloves and red scarf.
I thought this had a deeper intention than most No Wave films and that Dick has produced a thoughtful and interesting film that will continue to provoke interpretation. Lunch is excellent as the dominant/aggressive partner - the role perfectly suits the persona she had cultivated at the time. Place (who herself was a gifted musician in Bush Tetras and The Contortions) is given the less showy role, but acquits herself well.
The Skin Horse (1983)
Profound wisdom and absolute honesty
This ground-breaking TV documentary on sex and disability was directed by Nigel Evans, a noted campaigner for people with disabilities, and John Samson. Samson was also co-writer along with actor and narrator Nabil Shaban.
John Samson died aged 58 in 2004. This is one of 5 documentary films made by him during an intense 8 year period from 1975 to 1983. All of his films take as their subjects people who were marginalised by society at that time (and often still are).
Samson was a working-class young man who left school to become a shipyard worker on the Clyde. Here he became a spokesperson for the shipyard apprentices before becoming involved in wider political activism in the Scottish anarchist community. He then fell in with an artistic circle and attended the National Film School in London, subsequently becoming a documentary filmmaker. His work, almost lost to obscurity, is now being critically reappraised following a major retrospective in Glasgow in 2016 - the first time his films had been screened publicly in Scotland.
The Skin Horse is widely considered to be his best work. It was screened in 1984 on the UK's new Channel 4 and won a Royal Television Society Award. The film mainly focuses on the Outsiders Club, an organisation of that period designed to allow disabled people to meet and experience romance and intimacy at a time when the idea of a disabled person being a sexual being was considered 'frightening' or 'distasteful' by mainstream society. The film deals with this subject in a non-judgemental and sensitive manner. Nabil Shaban is outstanding as the narrator, displaying a natural wit and warmth which allows him to be challenging and forthright about a subject that still made many viewers of the period uncomfortable. Well-chosen clips from Tod Browning's Freaks and David Lynch's Elephant Man are used to illustrate Shaban's central point that disabled people are characterised as either 'monsters' or 'children'. He goes on to demonstrate how mainstream society makes a rigid dichotomy of the disabled as abused/patronised or fetishised/sexless. Other disabled people are also given space to discuss their sex lives in a frank and open manner.
The title, The Skin Horse, is taken from a character from the much-loved vintage children's novel The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. The Skin Horse is the wisest and oldest toy in the nursery who, although physically shabby, can be relied on to answer the other toy's questions with a profound wisdom and absolute honesty. These are qualities which he shares with this wonderful documentary film.
Red Italy (1979)
No Wave take on Italian film post-neorealism
A tall, rich, blonde woman, Monica, (played by Jennifer Miro of The Nuns) trawls the bars and dancehalls of an Italian city (actually Italian-looking locations in New York) trying to escape boredom and her wealthy, jealous boyfriend, Marcello.
She meets Gino (played by Eric Mitchell himself), a poor communist factory worker by day and dancehall musician by night.
This is a classic No Wave movie and, in that tradition, is extravagant and ambitious in the scope of its fiction, whilst remaining grounded by its miniscule budget into a raw street-level verite. No Wave films often parody mass cultural forms and Red Italy parodies the style of 1960/1970s post neo-realism cinema, e.g. Pasolini or Antonioni. Red Italy actually features a short clip of Pasolini's first feature film Accatone half way through.
Red Italy also contains a great sequence with Mitchell as the singer of a band consisting of the likes of John Lurie (of the Lounge Lizards) and Arto Lindsay (of the band DNA) playing a frazzled, jazzy cover version of Gene Vincent's "Be Bop a Lula".
As is usually the case in these No Wave films, the cast seem to be having a lot of fun. There's a great scene in a bar where No Wave regular, Patti Astor, has a genuine fit of giggles.
Red Italy is a must watch for anyone interested in New York's underground film scene.
Scorpio Rising (1963)
A masterpiece exploring the toxic cult of masculinity
Sometimes experimental films have to be endured rather than enjoyed - this isn't the case with Scorpio Rising, which is utterly compelling from start to finish. This film's imagery has clearly been carefully studied by the likes of John Waters and David Lynch and it's hard to believe just how modern it still looks.
My take on this is that it's an exploration of the present day cult of toxic masculinity. Any truly great work of art allows you to suddenly see the familiar in a new way and thus adds to your own layers of understanding. Scorpio Rising looks at western culture through the eyes of a gay man, and through the juxtaposition of images and use of pop songs highlights its absurd fetishisation of masculine power and dominance. This can be seen by the masculine, phallic shapes of buildings and vehicles in western culture, which are invisible to us, as we are integrated into this culture, but clear to any outsider with a rudimentary understanding of Freudian psychology.
As I understand it, and I'm no expert, there are twelve Astrological Ages in total; one for each constellation of the zodiac. Each Age lasts for approximately 2160 years. Anger was a student of the work of Aleister Crowley and, like many in the 60s, believed that the present age would soon end and we would usher in the Age of Aquarius, characterised by a dominant world view in which the individual is allowed his/her freedom to actualise as an independently liberated being yet still participate in group life in the spirit of altruism and humanitarianism.
The age we are living in now, however, is dominated by Scorpio, which is concerned with issues like sex, power, control and death. As traditionally feminine values are derided in our culture we have built machines in our own masculine image. We have over-powered weapons which can destroy the globe 100 times over and we revel in our mastery over machines. We fetishise cars and weapons in our films and books and we celebrate creativity which is destructive rather than constructive. Our God is an angry father and our religions are male death cults; the cutting between the images of Jesus and the all-male disciples and the images of the all-male biker gang hammer this home. Masculinity has reached its zenith and this celebration of the ridiculous and over-inflated male ego suggests that it will all end as it began - in violence. I loved this film.
The Wild World of Lydia Lunch (1983)
A good example of Nick Zedd's uncompromising art.
I note that the other reviewers of this short film are less than enthusiastic about it. I can understand that it's not immediately accessible and has a non-conventional structure, but don't let that put you off. For what it's worth, I enjoyed this. Zedd is a legend among no-budget directors and he has a particular aesthetic that is designed to be confrontational. In this film he moves beyond confrontation to produce something that made me feel genuinely sombre and wistful.
Some background - to make this film, Zedd followed Lunch to the British Isles and spent a month in London and Ireland following her around with a camera, basically filming their breakup. The voice-over that Lunch provides at the start of the film was her "fuck-off-and-leave-me-alone recording" that she had taped and mailed to Zedd when he was still in the US. I find the voice-over very revealing of Lunch's mental state at the time, but it's interesting to hear that she is still enough of a spoken word artist to make it so eloquently bitter and darkly humorous. While on camera, Lunch clearly doesn't want to be filmed and her scowling, sulky expression and dark gothic demeanour throughout the film contrasts strangely with the suburban and rural British locations. There is one great incongruous scene where Lunch is pushing a small boy on a swing that conjures up feelings of loss and yearning for me. You really sense that neither Zedd nor Lunch are at all in a happy place during the making of this.
The fact that Zedd travelled all that way too make it after being told he wasn't welcome at all says a lot about him as a film maker. Lunch has said of him - "That he was bold enough to come and track me down anyway is a testament to his stubborn dedication to his art." For me that's exactly what this film is - a testament to Zedd's stubborn dedication to his art.
The Long Island Four (1980)
No Wave period classic
This little oddity is the only film credited to writer-director Anders Grafstrom who died in a car accident in Mexico at the age of 23 just a few months after its completion. Grafstrom was part of New York's highly influential No Wave cinema movement and this work displays many of that scene's typical motifs. The film is shot in Super-8 and the acting, cinematography and editing have a DIY amateurish that tends to divide audiences.
Unusually, for a No Wave film, The Long Island Four has a fairly coherent plot based on a real life historical incident. The film reimagines Operation Pastorius, a German wartime programme designed to infiltrate the United States and destroy industrial plants, bridges, railroads, waterworks, and Jewish-owned department stores.
German Intelligence hoped that sabotage teams of four men would be able to slip into the US at the rate of one or two every six weeks. The Long Island Four follows the disastrous first team, led by George Dasch, which rowed ashore to Long Island during heavy fog on June 12, 1942. In this version of reality, the saboteurs quickly become seduced by America's corruptive decadence and begin to waver on their mission plans.
The four Nazi saboteurs are played by well-known East Village faces. The quartet consists of their leader Dasch (David McDermott, from the Victorian-style artist duo McDermott and McGough), Richard (Lance Loud, actor and musician from NY punk band Mumps), Heinrich (musician Kristian Hoffman, who played with Loud in Mumps), and Berger (Bradley Field, from influential No Wave band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks).
Casting around the close-knit East Village underground scene also meant parts went to Klaus Nomi, Tina L'Hotsky, Patti Astor, Joey Arias, Kristian Hoffman, Eric Mitchell, Ann Magnuson and Gedde Watanabe.
If you don't take this film too seriously (and the cast certainly don't) there's a fair bit to enjoy here. It takes a fair bit of chutzpah and ambition to make a period film on a virtually non-existent budget and Grafstrom and company seemed to have had a lot of fun doing so. The actors' abilities vary considerably but they supply enough comic energy and improvisational flair to keep the film moving along nicely. At the end of the day, this is a piece which is very much of a particular time and place and can be watched just as a nostalgic reminder of New York's short-lived but influential No Wave cinema movement.
Datai (1966)
Not for everyone, buy historically interesting
This is a product of the Japanese Pinku eiga film genre, which are basically sexploitation films, which flourished in the 1960s. I wanted to see this as I was intrigued by Adachi who was a prominent writer and director in the Japanese New Wave film movement, producing pinku films and documentaries. Adachi became part of VAN, a sort of loose anarchist artist group which operated a large studio in Tokyo. He stopped making films in the early 1970s and joined the Japanese Red Army, an armed militant organization, to organise terror attacks. The film is set in the office of a strange gynaecologist named Marukido Sadao - a play on Marquis de Sade. Sadao is obsessed with birth control and the concept of separating sexual pleasure from reproduction. Post-war Japan saw an influx of basukon eiga: sex education films that, in order to bypass censorship, purported to teach but were obviously only out to tantalise their audience. Abortion is a parodic take on these films. It's... well, it's... interesting.